Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/152

 an extreme scarcity prevails throughout the country. Indeed, no people in the world is more straitened with respect to the necessaries of life. A little juwarry bread, a small quantity of fish, an inadequate supply of goats and camels milk, and a kid on very particular occasions constitutes the whole of their subsistence. In the interior they live a little better, and possess large droves of cattle, which, during the rainy season yield abundance of milk. As there did not appear to be any cultivation of the ground in practice among this people, it may be strictly termed a pastoral nation. All the natives, both men and women, have an extraordinary craving after tobacco: they smoke it, take it in the form of snuff, and are in the habitual practice of chewing it, which, in a certain degree, I imagine, satisfies the calls of hunger. The dress of the men consists of a single piece of Arabian or Abyssinian cloth loosely wrapped round the body, and their hair, which is crisped, is curiously dressed out, frizzed, powdered with brown dust, and covered with grease in a similar way to that practised by the Hazorta and other tribes on the coast. The dress of the women is somewhat more modest than that of the men, though not very appropriate to their sex, part of it being formed of a close covering resembling a species of drawers, the edges of which are variously ornamented with kowries and other shells. Their hair is plaited in small ringlets, and their arms and legs are adorned with bracelets of ivory and silver. The drudgery of the house, such as grinding corn, baking the bread, and fetching the water, is as usual allotted to the females; while the males pass their time in tending their cattle, or more frequently in smoking and idleness. Their huts are constructed in the shape of the wig-wams of the American Indians, and are covered with mats formed out of the leaves of the doom-tree. Each hut is generally divided into two or three compartments, and their only furniture consists of a few rude couches, some cooking utensils, and a large jar for holding water. When a marriage takes place, at which time great rejoicings are made, an intoxicating kind of liquor called booza is supplied by the friends, and the foot of a kid is